Commercial Property: The West Side Viaduct; Conrail Looking to a Revival of Its Freight Traffic

Published: January 20, 1991

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The top three floors of the building are owned by Edison Parking and used for storage; the lower eight floors by Hirschfeld Realty of Manhattan and the Belz Investment Company of Memphis, which originally planned to convert the building into a factory-outlet shopping center. The architects are Emery Roth & Sons of Manhattan.

"We look for sturdy and secure buildings," said Robert A. Bryden, special agent in charge of the New York field division for the enforcement agency. "Perhaps more importantly, it has as many as 700 indoor parking spots. Keeping our cars inside and out of view is very much a plus." There is also fairly quick access to major roads, bridges, tunnels and Federal courts downtown. The project will bring up to 800 workers into the area.

Ultimately, however, the High Line's defenders fear that jobs will be lost with the removal of the viaduct, one of the last buffers protecting industrial tenants from development pressures. "There's a very strong and very viable economy there, with a lot of jobs," said Elliott D. Sclar, a professor of urban planning at Columbia University, "I'm still a believer that rail transportation is going to be very important to the stabilization and development of that area."

About demolition, he asked: "Why is there such a need to rush? No one is proposing to build anything. It's not that you're doing any harm to private interests right now."

But the property owners believe strongly that their interests are harmed. For instance, Edison Parking owns a whole block bounded by 17th and 18th Streets, 10th and 11th Avenues. The High Line runs over the eastern portion of the parcel.

"We have had inquiries from a manufacturer to develop that property and from a motion-picture studio which wanted to go there," said Mr. Sarini, Edison's vice president. "But nothing could be done because of that structure overhead. It's really a physical barrier to manufacturing development. Both of those deals went by the wayside."

The peril is not just economic but physical. "The cement underneath the tracks has fallen and almost killed one of my men," said David Duchini, president of Adolph's Trucking Company, which operates beneath the High Line, from 24th to 25th Street.

Meanwhile, demolition has begun on a portion of the viaduct, from Gansevoort to Bank Street, which was bought from Conrail by the Rockrose Development Corporation, which owns three blocks over which the High Line travels. Rockrose has already converted the Manhattan Refrigerating Company Building, between Horatio and Gansevoort Streets, into the West Coast apartments. Now it hopes to build two new apartment buildings to the south.

Photo: View west at 17th Street shows 10th Avenue High Line, former Merchants Refrigerating Company Building, right, and Nabisco building. (John Sotomayor/The New York Times) Map of Manhattan's West Side showing the route of the High Line